Coming Home
by Zivagirl2010
Summary: About Ziva coming home from Somalia.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN NCIS

It all happened so fast, Ziva David never had time to process a thought. She had been brought into the room, blind-folded and then suddenly she could see. What filled her vision were the forms of her former team mates, Tony and Tim. After that, it was a blur of activity; Tony talking to Saleem, a bullet coming through the window and killing Saleem, then being cut free of the binds that held her hands together. She then felt herself being lifted and helped to walk through the halls of her prison and finally meeting up with Gibbs.

After hours of debriefing, the team, plus Ziva was on their way home. The quiet on the plane finally gave Ziva the chance to decompress and process all that had happened that day. She was finally free after three months of being held captive by men who treated her the way no women should ever be treated. Her friends had come for her; even though they had been told she had died, they still came.

Ziva was startled out of her daydream by Tony plopping down in the seat next to her.

"Hi Ziva, how's it going?"

Not wanting to talk, and still upset with Tony; Ziva just sent him a glare, then turned back to looking out the window of the plane.

Gibbs watched as his Senior Field Agent went to talk to his recently found partner. After all that has happened between the two of them; with Tony tailing and investigating Ziva without her knowledge, and then killing her boyfriend out of self-defense; he knew the tow of them had a lot to work through. Seeing the glare that Ziva sent Tony, and then watching Tony move dejectedly back to his seat, he knew it was going to be a rough next couple of months.

About halfway home, Ziva was finally able to relax enough to drift into sleep. Her peaceful sleep didn't last long; she was soon trying to fight off the visions of Saleem and his men coming at her. They were just about to touch her when she was woken by a loud, high pitched scream. Sitting upright in her seat, now wide awake, she realized the scream had come from her and she had everybody staring at her.

Gibbs was the first one to rush to her side. Placing a hand on her arm; he could feel her shaking.

"Are you OK?" he asked.

Jerking her arm away from his touch, she replied, "I'm fine, it was just a dream."

"That was NOT just a dream; it sounded more like a nightmare. Are you sure you're OK?" Gibbs asked again.

"I don't want to talk about it," Ziva snapped. Turing away from Gibbs to look out the window, she wordlessly signaled the end to the conversation.

Placing a parting pat on Ziva's shoulder, he felt her tense up and shiver slightly as he made his way over to Tony.

"Hey, I saw you talking to Ziva earlier. By the way you went back to you seat, I assume it didn't go well," Gibbs asked him.

"She just glared at me and told me to go away. I have a feeling she hasn't quite forgiving me yet. I had hoped after taking her out of that place, she would at least feel some kind of gratitude towards me," Tony told him.

"You just got to give her time," Gibbs relied. "After all she's probably been through; she gotta have all kinds of thoughts and feelings invading her. Just give her time to sort them out, she'll come around eventually, and you'll be back to your normal selves."


	2. Chapter 2

A couple weeks later:

Gibbs was jolted out of his thoughts by the sound of yells and shouts coming from his living room, and the voice of his senior agent calling for his help. Bolting up the steps from his basement, where he was working while Tony and Ziva were talking, Gibbs was met with the sight of his youngest agent pining down his oldest agent.

"Ziva, get off me!" Tony yelled, struggling to throw Ziva off his back.

"It's your fault!" Ziva shouted back, tightening her hold on Tony. "If you hadn't killed Michael, I wouldn't have gone back to Israel, wouldn't have seen my father, he wouldn't have sent me to Somalia, and then I wouldn't have been held captive and tortured for months on end!"

Deciding it was time to save Tony from further harm and possible injury, Gibbs walked over to Ziva and hauled her off of his agent. He held onto a still struggling Ziva and watched has Tony jumped to his feet, "What is going on here?" he asked.

"We were talking," Tony started, "I was telling her how I was grateful that she was back home. I had asked her how she was doing. I think I made some kind of joke, and then she just jumped me."

Turning towards Gibbs, she replied back, "I was talking to him, trying to explain why I was still upset. I told him that I couldn't sleep and was still having nightmares, and he LAUGHED!" Pouncing at him, she was able to give him a hard shove; before Gibbs grabbed at her again.

"Really Tony!" Gibbs exclaimed, "You wanted her to forgive you. You wanted to be able to have the team back together. You really think laughing at her is going to get you that?"

Making eye contact with his former partner, he replied, "I'm sorry Ziva, I shouldn't have laughed when you were trying to talk to me. It was really insensitive, I won't do it again."

All he got for his apology was an angry glare, and he was thankful that Gibbs still had a hand on her arm just in case she decided to jump him again.

"Tony, why don't you go on home, and I'll call and talk to you later," Gibbs told him. "I want to talk to Ziva first."

"Yes, Boss," Tony replied, "Bye Ziva," he told her before heading out to his car.

Leading a trembling Ziva over to the couch and sitting down, he asked her, "Are you ok?"

Shaking her head, she let the threatening tears roll down her cheeks. "I don't know Gibbs," She started, "He just made me so MAD when he laughed. I still don't know why he did it. I did all the things my therapist told me to do. I told him about how I felt when Michael was shot and how I feel about my situation now. Besides you and the rest of the team, he's one of the only people that I felt I could my openly honest with, about how I felt. I should have rethought that." As she finished talking she broke down into tears. "I'm sorry Gibbs, I'm just so tired. I want to be able to sleep through the night, I want the nightmares to stop, and I want to be able to go back to work."

"Oh, Ziva," he said, pulling her into a hug, "I know how you feel. You went through something terrible and your mind just wants to replay it over and over again. It will get better; you just have to wait it out. We'll all be there for you, even Tony. I'm sure his laugh was some kind of defense mechanism, but he still should have thought before he acted, and I'll call and have a talk with him." All talking done the two of them sat together on the couch; Gibbs rubbing Ziva's back until the tears dried up and he felt her body go limp against his. Looking down he noticed she had cried herself to sleep. Gently he laid her all the way down on the couch and covered her up with a blanket, then went into the kitchen where he could still listen for her, and talk privately to Tony.

Tony had just walked in the front door of his apartment and was in the middle of berating himself for being so stupid, when his phone rang. Glancing at the caller I.D. he answered, "Hi, Boss."

"How could you be so STUPID and INSENSITIVE!" Gibbs started in. "She had just started to trust us again, and now we'll have to start all over."

"I know Gibbs, I'm sorry and probably could have handled the situation better. I don't know what was going through my head, but sometimes in tense situations or conversations it just happens. Maybe it's to try and lighten the mood, I don't know. But I'll work on it and try to make it up to her," Tony told him. "How she doing by the way, she still looked pretty mad when I left."

"She's pretty exhausted and cried herself out. We talked and she fell asleep. We'll have to work on the relationship between you two even more now if you want to be able to work together. I don't know how quite yet, but we'll do it. Maybe you can come up with some way to make up for what you did this afternoon," he told Tony before ending the conversation and hanging up.

Seeing that Ziva was still asleep in the living room, he headed to his own room for a nap. He had a feeling that we would be up most of the night and would need the rest to make it through the next day.


End file.
